Saga World Cup 2026 - Part 1. Preparation is ready

Stockport 1.-2.82026

Tradition of organising Saga World Cup as team tournament started already before covid and has now again continued for couple of years. I have considered organizing a team from Finland, but even missed the WC in Sweden 2025 due to being too busy playing other games at the same time...

So now it was certainly a high time to put together a team and so we did!

Jaakko - Age of Crusases, me- antique, Mr. I - Chivalry and Petri - Dark Ages

Read on to learn about our preparatios and how it all went down...

Preparations

Our team was formed quite early in late fall 2025 and we soon agreed our ages and started practicing. I0 was elected as the team captain and we signed up for the event.  As we had played Chivalry most of 2025 it was now time to expand / return to other ages.

Antique is definately my favourite age and I had mostly played Indians, but had started to test Persia and Persia has such a great variety in choosing equipment for units.

So I chose the Achaemenid Persians - I love elephants in Saga! Jaakko took Baltic Cruders, Petri chose Sassanids and Mr. I deciced for Condottieri.

During our preparation phase I played 40+ games of Saga (this year) and most of them with Persia. First I didn't have an elephant in the list, but after testing it a couple of times, it stayed in the list:

* Warlord (mounted / nothing)

* 1,5p. HG (typically combined formation, but sometimes mounted or no equipments)

* 1p. warriors (most ofthen mounted on camels, but as needs be, could be on foot, or even on horses)

* 1p. levy archers 

* 1p. Camel rider mercenaries (often the MVP unit)

* 0,5p. Scythed chariot

I painted most of the army I took to WC during 2026:

See more pictures here

Some planning was also done:

* We played and estimated every scenario: is my army strong or weak for it?

* We evaluated every scenario: is it better to go 1st or 2nd

* We practiced the scenario choosing procedure

* And we ordered team shirts!

And of course loads of playing against as many armies as possible.

Jaakko lives in Lappeenranta, so he also traveled to a games day in Helsinki and I traveled to his Summer place in eastern Finland to play his Crusaders with my Mongols.

The Event

So as July was drawíng to a close it was finally time to pack the minis (after some last moment painting) and start the journey! I flew to Manchester on Tue 28th and rest of the team followed on Thu 30th. I visited Liverpool and met some wargaming friends (and the Beatles of course ) there and then we gathered to historical York on Friday. 

After arriving to Stockport on Friday evening, we headed straight to Puss in Boots and met several other participants there - good socializing indeed!

Element Games is a great venue for large tournaments

Players gathered to socialize in Puss in the Boots on Friday and Saturday
evenings. It was great to meet many familiar names from Saga related podcasts
etc.

Terrain sets for teams - we bought several sets for our club after 
the tournament

Team Tournament concept

I really liked the concept of this event. In a 4 player team each player was playing a different age 

and would face opponents from playing the same. There were 4 categories:

1. Antique: Age of Hannibal & Alexander

2. Dark Ages: Age of Invasions & Vikings

3. Crusades

4. Chivalry

Matching ages (aka players) and scenarios was done as follows:

"At the start of each round, the Team Captains shall allocate scenarios to their team members. Starting

with the lower ranked team (dice-off for round 1), Team Captains shall alternate picking one of the 5

scenarios and determine which Period it will be played. This scenario is then removed from the list of

options; thus, no scenario may be chosen twice, and one scenario shall be left over at the end of this

process, with neither team picking it. "

The player, that the scenario was chosen by the oppsing team, had the choice of being P1 or P2. The whole tournament package can be found here.

Saturday - Day 1

Round 1. vs. Team Belgium

Antique (me): New Feud vs. Successors (Greek)

Dark Ages: Clash of Warlords vs. Welsh

Crudades: Desacralization vs. Saracens

Chivalry: Sacred Ground vs. Swiss

Matching screnarios and ages

Game starting against a wall of Successor sarissas!

Facing so many sarissas forced me to deploy warriors and HG as foot troops: warriors with no additional equipment and HG as a combined formation. I had 3 units, that could shoot with 6 dice...

I was P1. During R1 each unit could only be activated once so not much happened: my shooting foot units started to drift left to get into better position and away from the main enemy battle line, while Successors moved towards the hill - I was not in a hurry to go and face them

Round 2 my Camel riders started peppering the enemy left flank with several volleys and my combined 
formation also let loose. Then I moved the camels behind the swamp, but I should have pre-measured enemy distance better... One Successor unit took two actions to charge them and they were almost destroyed. Good play from my opponent, even if it left one phalanx quite far from the main fight. Camel riders is probably the most dangerous unit in my list.

R3 & R4 my shooting really bited the enemy, several Saga dice were lost, including the whole HG Sarissa unit. I had a clear lead in slaughter points. My special character - Councelor still stayed put in the rocky ground. 

During R5 last phalanx on the hill was destroyed and I pushed my HG and my Councelor to the hill. 
My opponent only generated 2 or 3 Saga dice, but that and we obey were enough to charge my Councelor several times - he stayed a live, but I had to sacrifice 5 of my HG as bodyguards. My army still generated 6 Saga dice, so I was confident I could destroy the remaining enemy unit and push back to the hill on R6 and win... if it would be played. Alas we rolled a 1 and the game ended!

Team mates playing their games

R1 Results:

* Antique - Loss with 1 TP and 22 VP

* Dark Ages - Draw with 3 TP and 5 VP

* Crusades - Loss with 1 TP and 10 VP

* Chivalry -Victory with 7 TP and 35 VP

Total 12 TPs and 72 VPs

Round 2. Mercian Marauders - England

Antique (me): Take & Hold vs. Macedonians

Dark Ages: Advance vs. The Irish

Crudades: Frozen River vs. Byzantines

Chivalry: Settle a Grudge vs.  Hussites, 

I faced another Sarissa wielding army, this time Macedonians in an objective holding scenario. I went 
1st again. Once again both my warriors, HG and WL were deployed on foot. My opponent had two mercenary units: scary Agrarians and Illyrians - not ideal for holding objectives, but potentially deadly against my camel riders and levy bowmen... at least his HG was mounted...

R1 My troops maneuvered slowly forward and the camel riders were meant to do the real work, but unfortunately I really messed up and placed 2 saga dice on Hero & HG activation, instead of warrior activation! Still they were able to reduce one Macedonian phalanx to 3 men and my opponent lost a Saga die. If I would have had those two more dice, could have proceeded to shoot his mounted warlord... now they were left standing facing the enemy... and soon had to retreat to secure their saga die.

Mid game he took both flanking objectives and the scary Agrarians rushed my levy bowmen and I was 
silly enough to spend their fatique, so they got another free charge, I should have known better, having played that same mercenary unit myself. I then countered and killed the exhausted Agrarians with some shooting and a charge from my warlord. In the left his mounted troops (HG and Warlord) charged my combined formation HG, whom survived this onslaught with 2 men still standing. It was then easy form me to finish the enemy elite with some shooting and charges from my warriors and the elephant. Illyrian mercenaries had pushed too forward and my scythed chariot charged them and killed 7 /8 - lucky and deadly! With this carnage (and my opponent loosing 3 SD) the game was more or less in the bag!

In the right flank my camel riders joined the fray and took a one
more SD out and hence the sarissa unit would not control the objective anymore.

In the end there were no enemies left in the middle and left flank
and I secured the victory by holding the objectives - decisive victory!

R2 Results:

* Antique - Victory with 8 TP and 44 VP

* Dark Ages - Loss with 1 TP and 36 VP

* Crusades - Loss with 0 TP and 0 VP

* Chivalry - Draw with 4 TP and 31 VP

Total 13 TPs and 111 VPs

Round 3. vs. Mousque-team, France

Antique (me): Winter Warlords vs. Successors

Dark Ages: Village Pillage vs. Scots

Crudades: Wolf's Pass vs. Mongols

Chivalry: Fight for the Body vs. French

Me and my Successor (Asia) opponent 

This game was more or less won in the terrain placement and deployment: I placed 2 large uneven terrain pieces on his deployment (poison for sarissa wielding phalanxes and cavalry). My opponent was about to even deploy his HG cataphract cavalry on the steep hill and I asked are you really going to do that? It seems, that there was some language barrier involved, as he said he thought it was open, even if I had several times pointed, that it was uneven. This lead to him deploying his infantry in the middle, funneled nicely into the shooting killing zone of my troops. His Cataphracts were deployed on his extreme left flank and I countered them with my elephant and camel warriors... troops, that horse mounted HG really don't want to engage with... once again I went first and my camel riders started their harrasment , supported my combined arms HG, peppering the frontline phalanxes with arrow volleys.
On my right flank I made sure to stay away from L, so that if the cataphracts would charge, they would come in with a fatique. 

Same tactics continued in the following rounds with the camel riders penetrating deeper into enemy lines to cause more havoc. My right flank continued in a stakle mate situation

Too late his cavalry started to maneuver around the steep hill (they never saw combat) and this liberated my right flank troops to move towards the center, were the fighting was happening. Enemy elephant charged my elephant with good buffs and managed to kill it, but was exhausted after the melee and was hence easy pray for my arrows. Soon the game reached a situation, where my opponent didn't want approach my forces anymore - they would have decimated with my arrow storms. I had already won, so there was no need to risk anything... as said, game won in the terrain placement.

R3 Results:

* Antique - Victory with 7 TP and 24 VP

* Dark Ages - Draw with 3 TP and 3 VP

* Crusades - Loss with 0 TP and 18 VP

* Chivalry - Draw with 4 TP and 25 VP

Total 14 TPs and 69 VPs

After the first day we were far from the top, but not quite on the bottom. At least we had improved our TP saldo each round! In the evening players gathered in the Pussi in Boots again for those lovely after game talks with food and dronk - great times!

Sunday - Day 2

Round 4. vs. Balding Eagles - USA

Antique (me): desacralization vs. Successors

Dark Ages: Take & Hold  vs. Picts

Crudades: Sacred Ground vs. Milites Christi

Chivalry: Advance vs. Condottieri

Captains of both teams faced each other. Again my opponent was well aware of the threat posed by Camel Riders and moved to attack them in his extreme right flank, where they were approaching one of the objectives to be defiled! When Successors set their minds to it (aka use several advanced melee abilities) they can really take out a unit in one decisive melee - especially with the Legatum profile for the army (aggressive).

I had decent defenses on all my objectives, so my standard strategy / tactics was working: hold my positions and shoot anything, that dares to approach! Soon I took out one of my opponents objectives and things were looking ok - though the loss of Camel Riders always hurts. My main concern were again the Agrarians advancing my right flank on an uneven steep hill...  eventually my warriors on foot managed to hold them off long enough, so that they we're not able to desecralize the objective behing my warriors. I had Sagaris-ability loaded with a rare, but in the heat of the battle forgot it's only for an attacker to use - I should have charged those mercs, when I had the chance!

Round 5. vs. The Scottish Team

Antique (me): Change of Plans vs. Republican Rome

Dark Ages: Clash vs. Scots

Crudades: New Feud vs. Mongols

Chivalry: Frozen River vs. French